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The brute moved as she approached, but it did not change her path nor her actions thereafter; the girl was committed, and once commitment was attained it was hard to break it away from her.

But she had broken commitments before, hadn't she? Broken oaths, promises, pacts.

Broken bonds.

Had the girl been able to see or sense the boggart that linked itself to the red behemoth's mind, perhaps she would have paused her attack, or not started it at all. But the companion remained elusive to sight, sound and smell, and so the cloud-girl was propelled into action by the initial recklessness that had possessed her earlier, action that was continued on now by the flow of adrenalin her body naturally produced when presented with a fight-or-flight situation.

This was decidedly a fight situation.

The great WHOOP of air leaving the lungs of the crimson giant caused a spike of satisfaction to rise within the girl, but as was the nature of battle, the spike of emotion soon crashed back down to something more.. panicked. White rings surrounded her bright irises as the girl landed, using the time it took for the scarlet beast behind her to recover to put some distance between them. Nimble though she was, the sheer height, length and reach of his legs versus her own was far greater, and she found herself swiftly returned to close quarters with him.

It was now that, had the girl time to gather her thoughts, she might have wondered exactly why she chose to pick a fight against such terrible odds. As his looming bulk leered closer, genuine fear caused the girl to duck lower.

What was I thinking again? the thought was thrown out into the aether, but only bitter silence replied. A metallic taste filled her mouth as the girl realised amongst the flurry of activity, she had bitten her own tongue, her jaw clenching as her nape tucked her skull down low. He might not have been aiming for her head nor eyes, but when a mammoth sized monster waved his rhino's horns at her, the girl's thoughts were on preserving her ability to see.

Sweat darkened her hide, not necessarily purely from the exertion of the fight, but rather the stillness of the night, the lack of wind that would normally dry off such perspiration, combined with the presence of the ever-thickening fog. As the beast's great head swung towards her, she shied to her left, leaning into the turn with legs scrambling to follow beneath her. The grass beneath her neat hooves had clung to the dampness of the mist, and so her traction was impeded, and it showed as a flash of ivory (the smaller, more nasal horn) lanced the taut skin that covered her right shoulder, splitting it open. It was not deep nor overly long (merely a hand's width), but it stung readily, and as the girl's sweat and mane dripped and bounced into and around it, she stifled a cry that would have shamed her in front of the great warrior.

Teeth ground together as she swallowed her pride, her ego feeling particularly more wounded than her body as the cloud-girl was forced to realise her ineptitude against this brute. But she was already well into the throes of battle - and a battle was something she had never run away from.

Having finally righted herself about half a body's length from where she watched the beast raise his dual-horned crown (and she looked particularly nastily at the smallest one, which was tipped in her blood), the girl clacked her bloodstained teeth together harshly, snapping at the air. Thrusting her wings out, she winced at the pain moving her right one caused, but pushed herself past it as she bent her nape to pull the weapon passed down through generations from her the clutches of feathers amongst her left appendage. Bloodstained saliva coated the wooden surface as she rolled her tongue over the familiar indents briefly, holding it closer to its sharp, silver tip than she normally would - but surely this steed would not know the correct way to hold a spear anyway. Cirrus was counting on his bewilderment of the sharp point to make her next move.

Wings still flared, the girl attempted to rush at the stallion, to get in close to his face and once again, to feint an attack with the sharp end of her spear. She jutted it forward, aiming for the underside of his neck (as that was the most accessible area for one of her stature), before sharply twisting her skull (and thereby, rotating the spear's wooden shaft swiftly through the air) to hopefully land a jarring attack upon his large, elevated head.


[ 792 words as counted in MS Word.
2/3 attack posts
0/1 closing defence
@[Hector] ]